Glo Networks Technical Blog (Glo Blog)

Glo Networks team sharing their technical experiences and thoughts.

Exchange 2010: Slow Relay?

2009 November 24 – 6:02 pm

If you’ve got an external application that sends messages via your Exchange 2010 server, you might’ve noticed that things have slowed down a bit. The reason for this is because the Exchange 2010 receive connectors have a MaxAcknowledgementDelay setting, that will inform you if the delivery is successful, within a certain time frame. If the timelimit is hit, it then acks the submission.

To disable this you can set your receive connector not to use this feature: Set-ReceiveConnector "Connector Name" -MaxAcknowledgementDelay 0

Further details are available on technet.


Exchange 2010 Upgrade

2009 November 17 – 10:01 pm

Exchange 2010 LogoOr should I say new install? At the weekend we upgraded Glo Networks Exchange server from 2007 to 2010, it didnt go with out a hitch and thought we should blog about what we found.

One of the main problems is the upgrade path to 2010 is not an easy one, because there are so many changes do the way the database works, you cannot simply un-install Exchange 2007 (leaving the databases) then install exchange 2010 and mount them again.

Some of the problems we came across -

  • No in-place upgrade option
  • Public folders replica issue
  • Users mailbox permissions when moving a mailbox
  • Unable to uninstall due to public folders being left behind

We manged to fix all the problems that we found while doing the upgrade and now have a full functioning Exchange 2010 server.

If you would like more information about Exchange 2010 or about the problems we came across and how to fix them please contact us on +44 845 5210 140. The entire thing was done remotely on Hyper-V Virtual Servers, so we can help out pretty much anyone who may need it.


ADSL in the UK (Broadband)

2009 November 13 – 3:10 pm

A bit of a rant, but very relevant all the same.

So we all have ADSL to our houses and our businesses. It’s all over copper cables laid by men with clubs in the stone age. I understand that changing the copper cabling in the UK will be a pretty big deal. Why not allow companies / people to pay for a fiber install to our doors if we want ?

Here comes the reason for the blog …

We moved into a new build house in 2006. When the house was built we asked for 3 phones lines to be installed at the same time, which they were. So tell me why each line syncs at a completely different speed ? As of right now the 3 lines show as follow -
Line 1 – 5114 kbps / 1087 kbps (ADSL 2+)
Line 2 – 2304 kbps / 640 kbps (ADSL Max)
Line 3 – 4027 kbps / 800 kbps (ADSL 2+)

When they were all ADSL Max’s the downstreams were about the same. It’s not the routers, the ADSL filters or the in house cables. So that leaves the route to the exchange. So is it that each line takes a different route or that each line is on a different quality cable ? If it’s either of these why can’t we get it fixed ?

Another interesting point is that there’ are more new houses going up in field across from us. So when a they have a new phone line put in the following happens our phone line drops a few times.
Firstly why should our phone lines drop if someone else is having a line put in ? (What if I was on a 999 call and it was life or death ?) Interestingly when the lines are back we get sync from 3mb to 6mb. A few weeks ago we had over 6.2mb on one line and it lasted for a week until someone else moved in nearby ! I guess it’s just if the BT person moves our cables one way or the other.

Last point is in the morning when I get up for work I check the speed of our main ADSL line, yup the 5mb one. About once a week it’s down to 4.2mb or so. I can get it back to above 5mb by software rebooting the router. It usually takes about 4 goes or so and will happily stay at over 5mb until some magic happens overnight or someone nearby moves in. Why on earth does rebooting a router a lot mean I get better connections (yes someone will say it’s server side speed syncing but that’s not an answer) ? Surely this technology isn’t like a PC where each reboot cleans it up ?

Can I please pay someone at BT or whatever to sort these lines out and if not is that not a massive whole in the market ?


Big OS X update (10.6.2)

2009 November 10 – 10:40 am

applelogoApple have released a big update today with a whole range of fixes including one for the new late 2009 iMac’s video and performance issue, the update is 500MB do you might want to start downloading it.

Full details of the update can be found here

This is Apple’s first big update for Snow Leopard taking the version to 10.6.2 with more than 30 fixes in the list, we have already downloaded and installed it on our own Mac’s with no issues so far.


Some Interesting Technologies on their Way

2009 November 9 – 6:22 pm

There is always a lot of new technology bubbling to keep us spending money. We spotted a nice (but long) post on the web and thought we’d pick some of the interesting points out.

USB3cableTransferring Data
Getting data off your desktops, to your mobile, backup HD or something else can never be quick enough. So it looks like these changes will help that out -
USB 3 – 3.2gbps, greater power output
802.11ac – like wireless N but running at 1000Mb (N runs at a maximum of 300Mb)
802.11ad – like bluetooth in range but running at USB 3 speed.

USB 3 has started shipping on new motherboards for enthusiasts already so see it on your servers, laptops and other hardware shortly. With USB 2 running at a maximum of 480Mbps it’s quite a jump to over 3Gbps for USB 3. Just hope the USB HDs can keep up with all that bandwidth !

WiFi has only just gone 802.11n so we’d expect this to probably be available sometime late 2010 if we’re lucky !

augmentedAugmented reality
The ability to get information super imposed over real life views is a bit of a Sci-Fi dream. People have been imagining having HUDs projected onto glasses, intelligent contact lenses or even somehow projecting information directly into your retina. However it looks like the easier and safer method of linking a mobile phone camera and it’s display in real time is what’s going to be in all our hands very soon. Have a look at this video for what is already out there.

The possibilitys are pretty impressive.

HTML 5
Well this one is actualy a little tricky. It will probably huge once it takes off but you’ll never even know it. No browsers fully support it yet and there are even possible patent issues. So watch this space.


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